AIRO,
April 21 — Defense lawyers summed up their arguments
this week in the case against Saad
Eddin Ibrahim, a prominent
Egyptian-American sociologist accused of defaming
Egypt and accepting illegal donations from abroad,
among other charges.
Ibrahim Saleh, the lead defense lawyer, told the
three judges hearing the case in the Supreme Security
Court that the accusations against his client were
politically motivated and intended "to hunt, to
snipe at and to silence" the sociologist.
The case is being closely watched by human rights
groups in Egypt and abroad, with the charges against
Mr. Ibrahim and 27 others working with him seen as an
attempt to scare independent research groups away from
sensitive public issues.
The court postponed the continuation of the defense
for the whole group until May 19.
Mr. Ibrahim's five lawyers took two tracks in
defending him. The first, a character defense,
stressed his international reputation for solid
research. The second, on points of law, laid out how
much of what the Ibn Khaldun Center did was discussed
publicly in Egypt, if infrequently, and suggested that
some evidence was fabricated.
Mr. Ibrahim, who is out on bail, remained confident
he would win the case. "I've been optimistic
since the beginning of this dilemma because this is a
baseless case," he said.
The Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies,
which Mr. Ibrahim founded, delved into subjects like
electoral fraud and tensions between Egypt's Muslim
majority and Christian minority.
Mr. Ibrahim was a vocal advocate of independent
judicial review of voting in Egypt and his center had
planned to monitor last fall's parliamentary election.
He also wrote a satirical magazine article about Arab
leaders grooming their sons to succeed them, which
mentioned the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak.
"Saad did not stop at the red lines; he spoke
about two taboos, religious intolerance and the
elections," said Abdel Qader Hashim, another
defense lawyer. "He stepped into restricted
areas."
The prosecution accused Mr. Ibrahim of harming
Egypt's image with exaggerated reports, of accepting
foreign donations without government permission, of
using donated money for personal enrichment and of
bribing newscasters to report favorably on the
center's work.
The government also said the center, in its work to
raise voter participation, forged registration cards.
The defense pointed out that Mr. Ibrahim was
repeatedly hired as a consultant for the United
Nations, the World Bank and the European Union. The
center used some of the $250,000 it received from the
European Union's administrative arm, the European
Commission, for a project on voting rights in Egypt.
Mr. Ibrahim's lawyers said the center was working
under contract as a company, and therefore not subject
to a law requiring voluntary groups to report foreign
donations. They also presented a letter from the
European Commission stating that an audit found
nothing improper.
The government fabricated some evidence, the
defense said. One researcher at the center, whom
defense lawyers accused of being a government plant,
told Mr. Ibrahim that the voter registration cards
needed to be kept at Mr. Ibrahim's home for
safekeeping. When the security police raided the house
two days later, they made a beeline for the cards and
later pronounced them forgeries, the lawyers said.
